WARNING: Don't read this next post if you disagree with it.What can you say about a country where it's legal to chop up babies but illegal to send innocuous powder through the mail?
Not that it's good or right or just or excusable in any way shape or form to fool people into thinking their lives are in danger, but I mean, really... How far can you really blame someone if their sense of judgment is not sufficiently developed so as to pick up the sublte nuances which allow such a dichotomy?

Oh, well, this is just wonderful. A character only mentioned in passing previously is now becoming integral to the plot which means he needs to be fleshed out a bit more. Does he get this own scene? Who can tell! Stay tuned.

Tuesday, November 27, 2001

If I could, I would make Buffy so much better than it has become.
Here are some suggestions:
1) Cast Jon Polito as a goofy, wannabe vampire slayer and have him become really evil.
2) Cast Dwight Shultz as a neurotic mad-scientist and have him become really evil.
3) Bring back Armin Shimerman as The Translucent Blue Ghost of Principal Schneider.

The point: two years ago any of these ideas would have sounded really really lame, but now -- and I defy anyone to prove me wrong on this -- any one of these hacneyed plot developments would be considered a blessing.

The Star Trek edition of "The Weakest Link." Now THAT is good television!
I'm not going to spoil it for those who haven't seen it, but I would like to just say that I predicted who the winner would be (accurately) back when I saw the first promos for it on Saturday.
I'm sorry Armin didn't win, but hey -- you can't beat Reading Rainbow for an education!

Saturday, November 24, 2001

Friday, November 23, 2001

39,102. Words, that is. Literary gold. Brain tea.
I'll hit 50,000, certainly, by the end of the month, but there's no way the novel will be over at that point. I'm thinking I'm going to need the first part of December to wrap this up -- and that's just for the rough draft.

Wednesday, November 21, 2001

Wrap your mind around this one: the FDA, a government agency, okays a way to enable the population of the country it represents to effectively slow the rate of population growth until, at some time in the future (for Britain this will be the year 2006, by all reports) deaths outnumber births and without a steady influx of new residents (say from Central America or the Middle East) with large families, that nation dies off.

I mean, the government has been doing this for years, and I think it's finally starting to catch up with us. When Social Security is bankrupt, don't come crying to me because you didn't have any kids. Likewise, when there's no teenagers to work at Wendy's or McDonalds or to bag groceries, don't complain to me that the lines are all too long and that service is terrible.

By all accounts our planet could sustain a population some 20 or 30 times what it is now without any degredation in so-called "quality of life," or even any noticeable environmental impact. So one assumes that the push to eradicate our spieces is not driven by concern for our species or even the planet itself.

Which begs the question: who, or what, wants to see humankind wiped out? Then ask yourself if you're helping that agenda along just a little bit.

Like Moses said (and Victor paraphrases) "you have before you life and death, a blessing or a curse." I don't know anyone who would consider a birth-control patch a "blessing," except in the most cynical sense. Now children, on the other hand... those are blessings.

Monday, November 19, 2001

The story arc they'd been crafting since, it turns out, the middle of last season has just been resolved on Angel. Well, not resolved so much, as taken to the next level. It was unqualifiaby one of the best hours of television I've watched. Epic. There are so many people I know who need to be watching this show.

Saturday, November 17, 2001

A misleading headline, but the story actually makes sense: I doubt very much the public schools would authorize a field trip to see The Greatest Story Ever Told for example, despite the fact that it's based on the most widely read book in the world.

If witchcraft is a religion, as so many of its so-called practicioners claim, then to have the public schools authorize a trip to a movie during school hours which promotes witchcraft would seem to be in violation of the so-called "separation of church and State."

Hmm.... I wonder what it would take to get secular humanism listed as a religion? Hopefully we'll be hearing a lot more abou the light being shed on secular militants and secular intolerance for religion.

24,140 words.. so close to the 25,000 words which I needed to reach today (to be on schedule) and yet so far away. In honor of today, Friday, being the opening of a certain movie, I thought I'd give you a sample from my as-yet-untitled novel:

"She recalled one of her favorite series: the Richie Weaver books. Originally intended for children, the series of novels had found a most appreciative audience among legions of adult readers as well. So much so that even at work, Randall, her co-worker — who wasn’t the type, she thought, who’d appreciate lyrical fiction, or really even reading in general — and herself could spend much of their shift talking about the books and relating favorite passages.
"The novels told the story of Richie Weaver, a child whose parents had been killed when he was very young. He had been sent to live with his godparents who were exceedingly harsh and uptight: especially when it came to ensuring that Richie went to church every Sunday. Eventually Richie was able to escape his repressive foster parents and fled to the Asmadean Druidic Academy, a sort of preternatural boarding-school where the students were all trained in the Ancient Ways of the Druidic Arts. As it turned out, unassuming Richie Weaver had inherited great Druidic power from his real parents and excelled at all of his classes at the Academy — except of course, Sacrificial Feline Vivisection 204 (and Katherine had thought, as she read the passages where Mrs. Mugwhump detailed to the class the proper pouring of the cat’s blood over the huge stone altar, that she, an animal lover since childhood, would not have done very well in that class either). At any rate, Katherine really appreciated the handling of the internal, as well as the external, conflicts Richie faced: for example, while he certainly would have been justified in seeking revenge against the bigoted and autocratic foster parents who had tried to subvert his natural Druidic tendencies, Richie never did. Or at least he hadn’t yet: the sixth book wasn’t due out until next March."

Tuesday, November 13, 2001

I have a feeling the Sore/Loserman folks will be nursing this wound for decades. Undercounts, chads, etc... If the Gore folks hadn't been bribing homeless people with cigarettes or by employing the usual Democrat strategy of scaring minority voters it wouldn't have been a close race to begin with.

Also note that the problem for these people is not that the U.S. Supreme Court made the decision, but that it didn't make the decision they would've liked.

As for me, I'm just sad that Harry S. Browne or Howard Phillips didn't win.

I have, of course, just been reminded, in regards to the post two posts down, that it's for better that we live in a civilized nation (more or less) and that in order to respect not only the nation but civilization itself it's necessary always to work within the law.

"WASHINGTON, DC, (CWNews.com/LSN.ca) - During Tuesday's US House debate on the Unborn Victim of Violence Act (UVVA), a photo of a mother holding the body of her dead son was displayed on the House floor.

"The photo is of Tracy Marciniak of Wisconsin holding the body of her son Zachariah, who was killed in her womb during a criminal assault. Under current federal law, if a criminal assaults a pregnant woman and kills her unborn baby, he is charged only with assault because the unborn baby is not legally recognized as a victim. Under the proposed Unborn Victims of Violence Act, any criminal who injures or kills an unborn baby while committing a federal crime will be charged with two offenses, because he has claimed two victims."

The Photo. Keep in mind that children this old or older are killed in this country, legally, everyday.

I can certainly appreciate the efforts of those who would mail envelopes of benign white powder to abortion clinics in an attempt to disrupt their daily "business." What so many people don't realize is that in many respects, this is a war (at least insofar as the "war," on terrorism is a war). As certainly as a complete lack of respect for human life can lead misguided Islamic fundamentalists to crash loaded passenger jets into office buildings, that same lack of respect for human life can lead a 'doctor,' to convince a woman to murder her own child. The response of each act of undeclared war must be the same: an encouragement to the responsible parties for a renewed respect of life. If the responsible parties, be they terrorists or those responsbile for murdering the unborn do not seem open to even discuss the issue at hand (and show a picture of an aborted baby to most people and you'll find out just how unwilling they are to even consider the facts presented by that simple picture), then perhaps to some folks it becomes necessary to disrupt the efforts of those who would continue to commit evil.

This is the "American," mindset: to stop the evil-doers even if it means you wind up "bringing justice to them." This is not always incompatible with the Christian mindset: to pray for the conversion of the souls of the evildoers. Perhaps the middle way is to disrupt the plans and activities of those who would commit murder without becoming a murderer yourself. The folks who mail coffee-creamer to the abortion clinics may just have found a way to do this: stop the killing for however brief a period of time without harming anyone in the process.

Anyway, of course, I can appreciate their efforts in large part because I lack the courage it would take to do anything like that myself.

Bottom line: you can't consider yourself a "basically good person," as so many people consider themselves to be and not acknowledge that since 1973 almost 50,000,000 babies have been killed in this country, by Americans, intentionally.

Thursday, November 08, 2001

Hmm... There are four Iron Chefs (American, French, Italian, and Asian)... none from the original series. Oh no: Bruce Vilanch and Ron Popeil are judges.

The intro voice over is pretty much the same, except they're calling it Kitchen Arena, not Kitchen Stadium. And instead of saying "The heat will be on!!!" it looks like they're going to say "Turn up the heat!!" at the end (which is a little more lame, but I'm not a big otaku fanboy or anything so it doesn't bother me much).

This is the most intelligent commentary on the post-Joss Buffy I've yet read. It doesn't pull any punches, but it's fair and clearly written by someone who's been a fan from day one, episode one. I got something out of it, anyway.

I really enjoyed the Buffy The Vampire Slayer musical. You can really tell when Joss just steps in and takes over for an episode. Not only are the Willow/Tara scenes a lot more explicit but there's also a lot more single-entendres in the dialogue, too. Oh, and the characterizations are also a lot more focused and deep. That's a mixed whatever, but you get the point.

Jackie and I both agree that "Sweet," was the best villian demon they've ever had on there (even though he reminded me a bit, personally, of VeggieTale's "Nebby K. Nezzar," character when he'd sing "The Bunny Song,"). And who else caught the cameos by Marti Noxon and David Furty (and of course, Joss singing the "Grr! Argh!" at the end)? Anyway, next week will all be fallout from this week and will probably suck.

Anyway, very nicely done on the musical. Letterboxed, even. I like. One other interesting thing: the episode rang long, 70-minutes. Good thing we checked before we set the VCR! It'll be chopped up for reruns and syndication, so we're glad we got the whole thing. I wonder how they got UPN to agree to cutting into Roswell by 10 minutes?

Tuesday, November 06, 2001

UPDATE : That site is actually run by a really scary cult. Evidence of their twistedness can be witnessed by the fact that plugging in both my name and Mayize's turns up the exact same personality description.

I think that with 600,000 names to describe the Kabalarians had to kut korners.

Monday, November 05, 2001

I don't know how long this story will stay at that URL, but I'm linking it anyway because it just goes to show you that no matter how bad you think the world has become, how godless and chaotic it all seems, there is simlicity and beauty.

Bin Laden makes this into an Islam vs. Christianity conflict, an assertion undermined, somewhat, by the fact that virtually every Christian organization on the planet is saying "uh-unh!" to the whole Islam vs. Christianity angle. Besides, the notion that Osama is on a par with those representatives of Islam who once battled it out with the Spanish, Venetians, and Genoese at Lepanto is pretty insulting.

Osama's a thug.

It's like Babyface Nelson declaring a Holy War against the 1st National Bank.
Or Bobby Kennedy declaring War against the Mob.